“Everything?”
“Didn’t I say everything? Everything still mean everything, don’t it?” Bill started again. “But the people of that land was betrayed. Men come and stole ’em away from their kingdom—had to put chains on ’em to keep the magic down. Then they put ’em on ships and brought ’em to a new land. A hard land where they worked all day and all night long. And they suffered. They suffered. And then, a long time later in that new land, along come a prince.”
“Like in ‘Cinderella’?”
“Naaww,” Bill said, affronted. “This fella look like you and me. Big and strong and black as night. They said he was so strong he could grab the straps of a plow with both hands and pull that old plow better’n any horse. This prince had a powerful magic. He could suck the life right outta things. Could put an old dog down if its time had come or take the boll weevil sickness off the cotton. Yes, sir. That prince was mighty powerful. And that made some folks nervous, you understand? Too. Much. Power.” Bill spat out the words on a fierce whisper. “Soon, ever’body was talking ’bout the prince and sayin’ he killed people.”
“Did he?”
“No. No, little man, he didn’t,” Bill said softly.
“What happened?”
Bill took in a deep breath. The air smelled good, like chimney smoke and sunshine on snow. “One day, some men come and they took the prince to see the king’s castle and ask him to show off that power of his. First, they brought in a chicken. Old squawking chicken, and the first thing that prince thought was, There’s dinner.”
Isaiah laughed. “I ate four drumsticks last night!”
“You got a good appetite.” Bill reached out and patted the boy’s head. Once upon a time, he might’ve had himself a son like Isaiah Campbell, a boy who liked baseball and frogs and tall tales. If things had been different.
“What happened next?”
“Well, sir, the prince took that old chicken, but lord, did it fight him, all flutterin’ feathers and pecking—such a big fuss for a li’l old bird. Soon enough, the chicken stopped fighting. And then it lay cold and still in the prince’s hands.”
“He… killed it?”
“Quick and easy, like. So it didn’t suffer none,” Bill said quietly.
“And they ate it, right?”
“Right. Right,” Bill said. “Well, the king and his court were mighty impressed by this. That night, some men come to talk to the prince. Shadow Men.”
“What’s a Shadow Man?”
“Nobody you want to be messin’ with. Like the bogeyman made real. They heard ’bout what the prince could do with the chicken. They brought in something else for him. A man. They said he was a bad man, an enemy, and they asked the prince to use his magic like he done with the chicken. But the prince had never done that on no man before, no matter what the people in the town said ’bout him. And he was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Afraid it would curse him forever.”
“But if that man was a bad man, how could it?” Isaiah asked.
Bill took another breath, let it out slowly. “Ain’t that simple, little man. Ain’t that simple to know what the truth of somethin’ is. Just ’cause somebody tell you ‘This the way it is’ don’t mean you oughta believe it. You gotta make sure for yourself.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Supposin’ a couple people told ever’body you stole bread from the bakery.”
“They’d be liars! I wouldn’t steal nothing!”
“I know you wouldn’t. But some folks might believe ’em. ’Fore you know it, they telling ever’body you’re bad. Other folks hear it and they believe it, too. Don’t bother to check into the story ’cause they’d rather just believe that than find out for themselves.”
“Why?”
“Looking for truth makes a man hafta look at himself along the way.”
Cold wind eddied around Bill’s trouser legs and he felt it in his bones. Isaiah took Bill’s hand. The soft trust of the boy’s fingers was a surprise.
“Did the prince kill that man?”
“Yes,” Bill said after a pause. “Yes, son, he did.”
“And was he cursed?”
“Yes, he was.”
“How? Did it turn him into a monster?”
Bill was still for a moment, listening to a winter wren trilling from a nearby perch. “I expect it did,” he said, feeling suddenly tired, more tired than he could remember feeling in a very long time. “Come on now. Let’s go home.”
